


Not So Easily Played Upon

by hiddlemethis24 (myliege_theelvenking)



Series: Bad Influences [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: But Loki doesn't operate in the obvious, Established Relationship, Loki painted all of Tony's cars pink, M/M, Prank Wars, Revenge, Smut, loki is a little shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 16:04:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1393822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myliege_theelvenking/pseuds/hiddlemethis24
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki, Tony, and Pepper settle in for a night of card games and Loki isn't likely forget that Tony BLEACHED HIS HAIR anytime soon. Instead of going for the obvious, he goes for subtlety and manipulation.</p><p>Kinda sequel to my one-shot 'You Look Good as a Blond' http://archiveofourown.org/works/1183216</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not So Easily Played Upon

**Author's Note:**

> Um, came up with this idea while playing UNO at work a few days ago, but wrote most of this tonight while I was a couple Long Islands deep (still nice and Tony'd now), so I apologize for any mistakes or general crappiness.

Green eyes flicked over the cards sliding over the polished surface of the table, watching as they were lifted into well-manicured hands and shuffled into as meticulous an order as only one of Pepper's organizational skills would manage. Directly to his left, the inventor--genius, playboy, philanthropist--had his hands busy dealing out the cards, a standard deck that could have--and possibly did--come out of any casino in Vegas. Loki's long fingers drew the cards close to the edge of the table before smoothly bending them up and drawing them into his collection, making a show of arranging them in order. When the last card had left Tony's hand, landing in his own pile, he watched with a seemingly perverse smile as the man drew the pile into his hands and hit them once on the table to draw all the edges together before spreading them in a fan in his hands.

Tony, catching his gaze and interpreting it just as he was supposed to, was soon sporting a sly grin, though perhaps it was more accurate to say it was lewd or lascivious. "If you wanted to eye-fuck me, we should have played strip poker," he muttered. Loki allowed the tendrils of a smile to grow and lift, his eyes dancing in mischief. Pepper glanced from one to the other before quietly clearing her throat in a gesture that was more automatic than actually meant as any kind of admonishment towards the two. Honestly if the pair had stripped themselves nude in front of her and started to go at it, she wouldn't be terribly surprised though definitely more uncomfortable.  
Loki's eyes slid back towards the ginger-haired CEO, former girlfriend of the legendary Tony Stark who was now fucking an equally legendary Norse god. Oh there had been words about that, a private conversation or two between the vying powers because Loki was nothing if not possessive. Growing up in the shadow of the all-favored Thor, there were few things he could truly call his and he was not keen to relinquish any of them. Pepper had of course reassured that she had fully withdrawn from that territory and he was free to conquer and ravish as he pleased. And oh he pleased.  
With the territorial lines drawn as clearly as if on a map, Loki had welcomed the woman into this odd puzzle of a life he'd built with Tony, inviting her to evenings such as this when they played card games. This was one she knew from her childhood, learning from her grandparents. They were playing Wist, or more accurately, Widow Wist--and didn't that send Loki's lips curling in a mixture of amusement and disdain at the thought of that wicked assassin who bantered with her words nearly as well as he did. They only had the three of them, so a true game of Wist was out of the question, but this modified version, quite akin to Hearts, would suffice.

Tony led the hand and they played with a mixture of contemplation and the distraction of jokes and jibes. Loki was a little more adept at handling distractions, both in creating them without losing his own focus and in handling the ones Tony sent his way. He had too many years under his belt to be easily led astray from his plots, even ones so minor as a card game and his green eyes caught every card laid down upon the table. If someone took a trick high, he took special note of it. Take the tricks you knew you couldn't avoid, meaning there was little chance of them being short-suited where high cards could be tossed easily. Pepper ended up taking the majority of the tricks that hand, her mouth tightening in an endearing scowl. It wasn't that she was unintelligent, but she was far too pure in comparison to the Merchant of Death and the Liesmith. In that kind of company, it would be difficult to cling to any kind of vice when it was as small as hers surely were.

Leading into the second and third hands, Loki remained without points, though that was as much due to luck of the draw as to his skill in the game, as little as he wished to admit it. Tony's eyes darted over furtively, colored with frustration that also showed in the deepening of lines feathered at the corners of his lips and eyes. Tony wasn't young, not in mortal years at least. And even if he often displayed many immature traits, Loki knew there was knowledge in those brown eyes of experiences beyond his years. Experiences he should have never had to live through, and some of them his own fault. The god tried not to allow himself guilt over those, but that resolve cracked with every night Tony woke himself from thrashing too heavily in his bed, swallowed by the blackness or the brilliant light of the explosion of the nucleur weapon he'd sent through the portal. And all Loki could do was thread his fingers through Tony's hair and murmur soft words, sometimes in his own native tongue, sometimes in Tony's English, and wait until the inventor fell back into his dreams. It didn't always work and Loki had to watch the shaken man rise and disappear into his lab, leaving Loki to deal with the demons of his past. The demons he pushed aside to deal with Tony's. And he would remain awake until he couldn't keep his eyes open and slip into his own nightmares. He never spoke to Tony about them, bearing them alone as penance for his actions.

Loki was forced to take a couple tricks in his distraction and by the end of the hand, Stark was glaring at him with the eyes of a petulant child who didn't get his way. The god nearly rolled his eyes even before the words left the other man's mouth. "You cheated."

"I did not," Loki replied calmly, but there was also the air of command in his tone, the power of a man who was used to being obeyed even if people had questioned him all his life. He was the dark prince, the unwanted prince, the god of lies and mischief and chaos. If people obeyed him, it was more out of fear than respect. But Loki could live with that.

"You did too, you and your damn magic." Stark really sounded put out and the black-haired god's lips twisted upwards at the corners.

"Just because I am capable of using my magic for such things does not mean I always will. What joy would come from a victory made in such a manner when I can just as easily defeat you with only my clever mind?"

Tony shifted in his seat, unable to refute Loki's point but not in the least happy about it. "You still cheated," he muttered grumpily.

Loki sighed heavily. "I thought you would be intelligent enough to perhaps utilize the same technique, if not quite to the same success as I do. Card games are not all about a person's face--though learning to read the body's subconscious cues is certainly a part of it. You arrange your cards before every game, yes?"

Stark stared at him for a moment before nodding stiffly in reluctance.

"Pay attention to every card that is laid down, but more importantly, where it is drawn from a hand. You will begin to see the patterns. I know you and Miss Potts here have a penchant for order, yes?" He didn't need confirmation, but paused anyways. "You will arrange your cards by suit and then by number within the suit, usually the highest card first and then the low cards at the end of your run. If you pull a lower card from one suit and then a lower card from another suit, I can get an idea of how many cards you have in one suit. It is far from foolproof, but that is just a basic technique. I have several other...'tricks up my sleeve', shall we say."

Tony frowned at that, but he also looked thoughtful. It was Loki's turn to deal and he did so. The inventor was watching him the whole time, which only gave Loki more of an opportunity to play with him, subtly licking his lips under the guise of concentration, then holding his tongue between his teeth with just the barest slip of pink appearing between his lips. He saw Tony shift in the corner of his eye, likely to accomodate a growing erection, which made Loki's green eyes spark with added mischief. "Tease," he thought he heard Tony mutter, sendig a thrill of victory through the god. After what Tony had done to him in the not-so-distant past with that bleach, he exploited every opportunity to get to Tony mercilessly, whether it was through sex or pranks. You did not prank the god of mischief and get away with it.

The next hand, Tony was clearly attempting to utilize Loki's technique, as did Pepper, though the assistant-turned-CEO was surprisingly more subtle about it. Then again, she wasn't a distracted alcoholic inventor with a notable attention deficit, either. Loki deliberately played into a few tricks and appeared suitably chagrined at it, but he still had the fewest tricks. Tony mumbled into his scotch and demanded another hand, which would likely be the last since Pepper and Tony were both nearing the upper limit for points before the game had to be called.

This time Loki allowed himself to lose quite thoroughly and it would have been suspicious if anyone but someone with his skill had done it. But he was a great actor and a great manipulator and he managed to scowl and hiss furiously as Stark's grin grew wider with every trick the Norse god took. In the end, Pepper still took enough to knock her over the edge, but Loki had also taken a fair few himself and the game was over.

Tony's grin was smug, while Loki scowled through the urge to smile. "Aw, c'mon Reindeer Games, don't be such a spoil sport. I beat you at your own game."

Loki glowered. "Only because I told you how," he spat, all the while cackling silently in his head. He didn't need to do something garish like paint all of Tony's cars pink (okay, well he'd done that anyways and he couldn't wait until Tony discovered it) to get back at him for the prank he'd pulled a few weeks prior. Playing into Stark's need for dominance and superiority, especially when done so expertly, would suffice when he found out he'd been had.

Tony pulled the reluctant god into a hug and pressed a finger beneath his chin to lift his head up for a kiss. His lips were soft and lightly flavored with the pungent alcohol, wafting its own heady scent along with the usual Eu de Tony. Pepper seemed to sense her cue, clearly her throat again softly before scooting back from the table and grabbing her coat and purse. "Well, I will see you two tomorrow. Have a good night."

The second the door clicked shut, Loki's hands were all over Tony, grabbing, caressing, fingernails digging into skin. Tony's hands were far from shy either, shoving roughly into the black hair at Loki's nape and trailing down his side to make him twitch before settling roughly on his hips. The god allowed himself to be lifted and shoved onto the table, clothes disappearing just as Tony reached to fumble with the fastenings and blind lust overtook him.

When they moved from the table to the bedroom, cards clung to Loki's sweaty back, some flaking off during the short journey, others staying on for the ride so they would be found scattered in the sheets tomorrow morning. Tony tasted like alcohol and triumph, his lips forceful and unforgivingly warm on the god's clavicles as he arched over him, pumping into his lean body with a hunger that was only rivaled by Loki's own. Dominance was almost a moot point for them, as sometimes Tony would claim it and other times Loki would. Sometimes neither so much as claimed dominance so much as they relinquished control, in complete and utter trust in each other. This time, Tony's triumph surged in a rough claiming of Loki's body, but it was a triumph earned only by Loki's tricks, so if he occassionally took a little more control than usual, if he bit a little too hard, it was only because he wasn't completely ready to let the control slip through his fingers yet.

Stark was the first to spend himself, emptying into Loki with a hoarse cry and Loki ground himself against his lover to completion a few moments later, moaning into the crook of the inventor's neck and sending a shiver down his spine. There were a few welts on Tony's back where Loki's fingernails had left their mark, but the god was also covered in the deep purple blemishes of his lover's attempts to subjugate him. Oh what a joke that was, the god kneeling to a mortal. Even when he was on his knees before him, he was the one who held Tony's fragile body in his hands and mouth, able to unmake him in the span of a single gasp of breath.

It could have been a knife's blade they tread on, a single slip ending in catastrophy. But as little as Loki might admit it aloud, he was remarkably tamed by this breakable man with his suit of armor. Still, it was impossible to snuff out that spark of mayhem that danced within Loki's innermost self and he was unendingly grateful Tony had never tried.

Tony's breath evened out slightly and he was able to roll himself onto the bed beside Loki, chest still heaving and tendrils of damp hair falling across his forehead. He stroked Loki's face silently, the god allowing himself a fond smile before his eyes begin to drift shut and Tony shifted onto his back, staring at the ceiling as if thousands of equations scrawled upon it were suddenly made very clear. Sex had that effect on him, exhausting him but also clarifying his mind.

It wasn't until Loki had drifted halfway into the land of dreams that realization suddenly dawned upon Tony. "Hey! You threw that hand!" he exclaimed in indignation.

Loki only grinned and pulled Tony into a tight embrace. "Shut up, Stark."


End file.
